Platform exclusivity is bad for gamers, developers and everybody

07 December 2015

By Chris Kemp

Console exclusivity has been around since consoles themselves, and in many ways defines that console – or used to.

In the days of enormous third party developers with hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal, console exclusivity feels anachronistic – a relic of a time when multi-platform development wasn’t feasible. The practice has now been appropriated by deep-pocketed corporations desperate to get the edge over their competitors.

But is this a practice that needs to be retired?

Games sell consoles – or do they?

As console makers have said time and time again, it’s not the console that sells the hardware, it’s the games.

I’ve begun asking myself lately however if this bit of accepted rhetoric is actually true, or if it’s simply one of those myths that’s been perpetuated so long that we no longer question it, like NASA being too stupid to use a pencil in space or Napoleon being short or 30fps not being utterly terrible.

It’s no secret at this point that the console exclusives on the new generation have been, well, pretty bad. The big franchises are present and accounted for, but so-called big exclusives like Ryse and The Order 1886 haven’t amounted to much.

The PS4 is currently obliterating the Xbox One in sales, and I’d argue that it has little to do with what games are available. When people discuss the difficulties the Xbox One is facing, most of the talk is around the PR disaster that they called a launch and the perceived (and actual) performance differences between the consoles.

Neither console set the world on fire with their launch titles, and we can all remember that dark period where various remasters were the order of the day. Nevertheless, the message is important – the hardware matters.

Consoles exist as more than just a means of playing your favourite game; the hardware matters. And, of course, the more the disparity between the game libraries decreases, the more the importance of the hardware comes to the fore.

This is good for everybody (except, I suppose, the company stuck with a sub-par console). Negotiating exclusives does nothing to benefit the consumer, and too many of these exclusives allows hardware makers to rest on the laurels of their game libraries and not compete in the area they should be competing – the quality of the hardware itself.

Sorry Nintendo.

It encourages a monopoly

Saying that games sell consoles isn’t completely disingenuous – the only reason the Wii U sells any consoles at all is the games, after all, and their lack of third party developer buy-in conversely hurts them immensely.

In a world where several of the de facto “best” titles appear on one console, that is obviously a significant advantage. However, that also requires that both consoles be perceived equally, which isn’t the case with this generation.

The problem here is the potential for a snowball effect. Due to the installed userbase of the individual consoles, it is a lot easier for Sony to negotiate an exclusive at this point than it is for Microsoft. As for Nintendo, they won’t even get their calls answered.

What brought this into sharp focus was the recent release of Rise of the Tomb Raider, a hotly anticipated IP that has some pretty atrocious sales figures. This is in no small part due to the release of Fallout 4, but being exclusive to the lesser-played console is significant here.

It’s not just about a userbase either; that exclusivity greatly limits the hype leading up to release. Fallout 4 was a marketing juggernaut for weeks beforehand, to the extent that it became a global, shared experience. Of course Xbox One owners wanted to buy Fallout 4 – they wanted to buy the game everybody is playing. If your three main gaming friends own a PS4 and you are rocking the Xbone, you’re going to want to play what your friends are playing.

When 70-80% of the people who plan on playing Tomb Raider are only getting the game in a year’s time, it’s hard to get all that excited about its release.

Still, it sends a pretty clear message to publishers – Xbox One exclusivity is a death knell for sales. Whether or not it’s actually the whole truth is almost irrelevant; people tend to get a little gun-shy with budgets in the millions of dollars.

It’s annoying, overly complicated and ineffective

Exclusives have been less commonplace in recent years, as the money in the games industry has increased to the point that it’s difficult for publishers to justify releasing only for a single platform, and the required compensation is more than the perceived benefit for the console makers.

What has happened now instead is that we get “exclusive DLC”, “timed DLC” and in cases like Tomb Raider, “timed exclusivity”.

All this stuff is generally absurd and overly complicated for the average consumer. PS4 owners will be getting this set of maps, both platforms can download this DLC but this other DLC is for Xbox One owners only. The worst is probably the “exclusive content”, where particular in-game characters, items or objects are available only to a specific console.

Hell, if you want your bikini straps to break in the next Dead or Alive, you’d better have a PS4. Underwear integrity is far more advanced on a Microsoft console, apparently.

This is what platform exclusivity is all about.

What makes this particularly annoying is that it is essentially just a pissing contest with little real-world benefit for those involved. I would wager that precisely nobody was swayed into buying one console over the other because they get access to the Call of Duty maps two weeks earlier.

If anything, all this serves to do is fuel the rampant fanboi-ism and pointless rivalries that already exist between the console communities, with each lauding these trivial benefits over the other as if they actually mean anything.

It appears that exclusives (at least third-party ones) are on the path to extinction – let’s hope it stays that way.

Do you think exclusivity is a good thing? Bad for some other reasons not listed here? Share your thoughts in the comments.

“Hell, if you want your bikini straps to break in the next Dead or Alive, you’d better have a PS4.”

Is… is there a good reason for this or is it literally a negotiated “exclusive”? If the latter, then I will laugh and laugh and laugh. I’d like to read the marketing blurb for that on the front of the box.

They don’t explicitly say why, but I’m thinking some creepers over at Sony had something to do with it, lol.

LazyDemoni

Mate, you keep on getting your DOA facts wrong and then I look weird for correcting you. DOA Xtreme is NOT being released for Xbox at all. The PS4 exclusive features are exclusive because the game runs on a different engine than the one on PS Vita.

Haha sorry, I guess you could say I haven’t exactly been following development closely 😉

When the bikini thing came out all the headlines said “PS4 exclusive”, assumed that meant it was on other legitimate platforms, not just the Vita.

Are we still counting the Vita as a platform? I thought we were all just going to pretend it doesn’t exist 😉

Ray

I hate exclusitvity. I feel it’s a cheap way for the console manufacturers to increase sales without actually doing anything. Instead of actually working to ensure that your product is better than your competitors, just sign an exclusive deal to screw over evrybody that doesn’t buy your product.

I do feel thugh that some exclusivity isn’t so bad. First party titles are almost always visually impressive because of the fact that they only have to focus on one platform while 3rd parties are always making sacrifices and concessions to make the game work multiple platforms and still be finished in time. Uncharted 4 would not as good as it does now if it was being made for the X1 as well

A key point there is “still be finished in time”. I have little sympathy for games that don’t meet their potential because they were rushed out the door by greedy publishers =/

Still, your point stands. The first party stuff doesn’t bother me too much – it’s the brokering deals with third party devs that peeves me.

Lauren Hayward

Hmm, okay I agree exclusivity sucks for gamers, and I’m sure it affected RotTR’s sales. But please don’t underestimate what Fallout 4 did to it, how many people out there can afford two AAA titles on one day? And if you’re gonna choose one, please who’s choosing Tomb Raider, it could be bloody fantastic and still it wouldn’t get chosen!

I would also just like to peave that I won’t get to play Until Dawn, Bloodborne or Last of Us. Sigh

I did mention that, but the point I was also trying to make was that Fallout 4 being multiplatform always positioned it to do MUCH better in sales – hard to build hype around a game only available on the least-played platform.

Kyle

I have a PS4 and want to play online with my mate4s who have an xbone, I think it’s so stupid to not have cross compatibility on games just because sony does not like microsoft. WHAT has that got to do with gamers wanting to jam with mates? Gaming is slowly losing the friendship feels and is seperating what multiplayer should be! The fact that you have to have a certain console to play something specific is retarded, fine it makes business sense, but ask a gamer if he gives a sh!t about business sense and he will tell you, just give me game that works, that I can play with mates if I want and thats worth the money I spend on it. ID rather pay R1500 for a great game that can cross platform between xbone and PS4, then go out and buy an xbone console just for that extra swimsuit bra riddled with bugs. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, dividing the gaming community just seems like a loss for everyone to be honest. Even without the multiplayer aspect, people want to be playing what their friends are playing.

BinaryMind

It’s all part of the plan. I think they will do what GTA did. Make a bit of cash with 1st time round, then release a remastered version, this time on all platforms, and make a but-load of cash with some of the previous owners buying it again. It’s a conspiracy!

These “remasters” really annoy me. It’s fine if the game is a decade old, but these remasters of games released two years ago are absurd.

BinaryMind

Indeed. Money, money, money…

LazyDemoni

Exclusivity is not bad when it drives creativity. Console manufacturers need to recuperate their costs, so they have an interest in developing and marketing quality games. As pointed out by others, the quality of first party releases is phenomenal!

Nintendo take it further by making weird and wonderful hardware which forces games to be different. They’ve had their hits and misses but the Wii U is still the only worthwhile console for PC gamers, though Sony’s recent conference shows some compelling exclusives.

But your point was more about 3rd party exclusives and I have to agree that this does suck. The Tomb Raider thing might of had something to do with the initial release date of Uncharted 4. MS might of felt that by securing exclusivity for that period, they would of been able to offer a competing “exclusive” and gained some kind of victory.

It’s not a bad time to game on PC. Many console games make their way to PC at launch while others are delayed by a few months, meanwhile Street Fighter V won’t be on Xbox at all which is terrible. Basically I think that exclusivity should focus on first party efforts and I think the way Sony and MS are trying to block each other from 3rd party games is bad for everyone.

Yup, I think I agree entirely. I’m fine with first party games being exclusive, I think that just makes sense and adds a nice small dose of game competition to a buyer’s decision.

It’s the third-party stuff that irks me. I agree to some extent regarding PC, but I think the real problem there is that when a game is truly multi-platform, PC tends to suffer with the crappy port. Not always the case, but it definitely feels like if development is split between three platforms, PC gets the least attention.

I find it kind of insane that SF V won’t make it to Xbox One – any idea why? That seems super disappointing for the fighting game community.

As for the Wii U, it’s the only console I’d consider buying, so you’re right there. I think it offers that “arcade” feel of a console with platformers and Mario Kart etc., while playing an FPS or something on a PS4 just feels like a crappier version of a PC experience.

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